Time To Think About Heading Home To The Prefab House

Fortunately there has been progress on finishing the SIP (structural insulated panels) walls on the interior of the prefab modern house.

However, with the storms that blew through in June, local building professionals are overwhelmed. Our electrician has a backlog of 20 generators to install before he can turn his focus to us. The septic that was supposed to be installed in July? Hasn't happened. It's time for us to return all our focus on this prefab project- fall will be here soon.At the In-Town Ramshackle?
Summer may be waning, so we make the most of it.

Architecture Notes: Transformers

I love murphy beds and furniture that has multiple purposes... and am really liking how we're using the third bedroom in the In-Town Ramshackle.

To the world, as they enter through the front porch, it appears a parlor; and, as it is within the closed area where air conditioning reaches, we entertain there, often. Just last night friends dropped by on their way home from dinner for an unexpected, delightful evening sitting around the glass and marble table, drinking wine and laughing...

What they don't know is that when they depart I sliiiiiide the simple, sleek couch out, open the discrete wooden doors on one wall, and suddenly my bed is ready, my dressers and closet are exposed, and this parlor becomes, until dawn, my bedroom. I love it!

Ready for guests to spend the evening
with glasses clinking,
talking late into the night.

Ready for bed.

The Doors In the In-Town Ramshackle, with childrenz, dawgs, feral cats and chickens rushing potential guests at every approach, I have a new tactic. It began when, with the spate o' 110 degree days, we closed off the front door, the interior hall door, and bathroom, thus cooling the top two bedrooms, and, cool air following physics and descending, the third bedroom, beneath.

The rest of the Ramshackle remained Southern Summer heavy, still, with windows gaping, hoping to catch a stray breeze, it smoldered, oven-like, with thick air.

I soon realized this partitioning had a second purpose: Guests could now arrive, unmolested, through the front porch, while the indoor enthusiastic menagerie was contained (in fine furnishing and comfort albeit in the heat) beyond.

Enthusiastic canine welcoming committee,
on the OTHER side o' this door.

But.
To traverse from the parlor to the kitchen, in that second half of the house, to then return with wine and cheeses, glasses clinking, fluttering linen, and mounds of fruit, carefully displayed on awkward platters, all to welcome guests... This tucked within ten fingers, my elbows, defensive, forward as the procession teetered, navigating skeptically through the complaining beasts, towards the front... The hounds clued in on their containment. They began their attempts to slide past me as I, with one finger carefully balancing the bounty, tried to resolutely turn the old creaky doorknob without dropping the tray.

Then I discovered a back way.

Through the bathroom.

The bathroom entrance, off the secured area, has a normal farmhouse door.
BUT THE SIDE DOOR, once you're in the bathroom, is puzzlingly a venetian sliding wood contraption. Which I now find very useful. Like a good basketball player, I carry the Party Ball O' Food through the kitchen, fake to the right, then careen quickly through the left, down the hallway court and SLAM DUNK my way through the bathroom, sliding that wooden door shut, look around for a split second and go,"Wow. This is ridiculous. I am standing in my bathroom with a platter and wine and I SWEAR this has to be a Fawlty Towers episode... Somewhere, out there, a Briton is laughing and secretly filming this for BBC..."

I take a deep breath, smile, and grandly step through the farmhouse bathroom door, making my entrance through the hallway to entertain our guests beyond.Ta.Da.

Homeschool Happenings
Science this month involves measurements, documentation, hypotheses, graphs...
Each child got to chose their own science experiment, of which to measure, write, and document their findings.One child is using these science terms to make cookies.The other?

A potato gun.Sounds innocuous enough... probably even eco-friendly. I mean: POTATOES, folks.
Research, as the child wrote his hypothesis and a list of items to acquire, showed that maybe this Dinky Spud Gun might be a little more powerful than I thought.

I had envisioned measuring distance, velocity... all kinds of educational data in all types o' graphs...Now my thoughts turned to the end of our quiet lot, and the potential trajectories' end:
The Federal Goverment's Post Office.

Why yes, that them thar, right beyond the hensIS The Federal Post Office!
But seriously, how far can this Potato Thing-A-Mah-Jig shoot?

I'm just sitting back, mentally ticking off the potential felonies if this science project goes wrong...

Imagine taking THIS into a school classroom.

The week will be filled with Data Collection of potato guns and cookies, alike.

Homeschool links: In case you were wondering what sites I was using this week:

2 Comments:

*Thank you!*Well, they are both ongoing projects but I really do love that we were able to save the farmhouse- it had not been lived in for over 2 1/2 years, with a window open, lots of rot and mold and issues... We love it...!And I'm grateful I can give my children summers on the Bay, as I grew up doing...